


Almost Paradise

by tiger_in_the_flightdeck



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Fandom Trumps Hate, Fandom Trumps Hate 2020, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Flying, Garden of Eden, M/M, Over the Years, The Arrangement (Good Omens), crowley is a dork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28722054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_in_the_flightdeck/pseuds/tiger_in_the_flightdeck
Summary: After their superiors forget about them, Aziraphale and Crowley enjoy their time alone in the Garden.Thousands of years later, they are sent to interfere with a young naturalist who is noticing some interesting things about birds. On an island in the Pacific, they discover a little piece of paradise
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2020





	Almost Paradise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Spenglernot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spenglernot/gifts).



> For Fandom Trumps Hate 2020
> 
> As always, thank you to christyimnotred and beltainefaerie. Much love! 
> 
> All comments are read, I just might not be up to responding to them all.

Day One

The light from the humans’ fire could be seen in the sand dunes several miles off, flickering and crackling in protest of the heavy drops of rain which fell from the heavens. 

Crawly flicked the tip of his wing out from under the shelter of Aziraphale’s feathers and snapped it back again once a droplet fell onto a sleek black flight feather. 

It didn’t burn. 

Emboldened, he stretched out an upturned hand to catch the rain in his palm. It was cool and soothing after the blazing afternoon. He lifted his hands to his lips and took a sip. 

“It’s so clean,” he murmured and ran his tongue along his fingers to taste every trace of the water clinging to them. 

“What did you expect?” Aziraphale asked. He hunched his other wing up over his own head and ruffled the feathers. A strong breeze caught and tugged at his robes, sending a cold shiver up his spine in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but still surprising. He was so used to the tepid stillness of Above that all these changes were stacking up, threatening to overwhelm him. But he wouldn’t trade it for anything. With the humans gone from the Garden, he would hold onto these last few moments until he was called back Up. 

“I don’t know,” admitted the serpent. He poked his head out from under his counterpart’s wing to step directly into the shower. Turning his face up, he let the drops fall on his cheeks. Into his hair. “It seemed like a punishment,” he said eventually, head still tipped back and his arms held to the sides to accept the rain. 

Overhead the clouds seemed to shout. They cracked and boomed and a spear of lightning stabbed across the sky. 

Crawly jumped a few feet into the air and darted back under the canopy Aziraphale had left for him. 

“It seems to be part of the storm,” the angel told him when nothing terrible happened. “A noise in the air. Nothing dire.” 

His feathers still stood out in alarm, Crawly smoothed his hair back from his face. “I knew that,” he insisted as one lock got tangled around his finger. “Just wanted to make sure you didn’t scarper off.” 

“Of course, my dear.” Aziraphale lifted the folds of his robes up off the stone wall before they became sodden. He shook off one foot and was dismayed to see that the rain left the cloth translucent and clinging. Plucking it off of his stomach, he pouted. “I really should go check on the animals. They must be terrified, poor things.” And there were warm, sheltered caves to preen himself dry. 

“Oi, wait for me,” Crawly hiked up his robes and trotted to catch up. “I should look in on the plants. Make sure none of them are being damaged by all this,” he waved his fingers into the rain drops. 

  
  


Day Twenty-Four

The second rainfall was gentler. 

The days had begun to run together, but Aziraphale guessed that God could have recreated the universe at least three more times when new grey clouds began to roll in overhead. Streaks of sunlight still shone in patches and the rain glittered like diamonds where it landed on the grass. 

“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” he asked, giving himself a shake and looking back to the serpent. 

Crawly had been sunning himself on a large flat rock that was perfectly situated outside Aziraphale’s cave for conversations and tentative company when the rain came. Now he was wringing out his hair before twisting it into a knot at the back of his head to be pinned in place with a shed flight feather. “I said that we can’t let some of those names stick,” he repeated, nodding to a small animal covered in prickles which was trying to trundle back to safety from the shower with a tiny version of itself in its mouth. “Sharp mouse? Makes me think there might have been some smarts in that rib he gave up.” 

Aziraphale tried, and failed, to hide his smile before it lit up his face. 

Crawly had found himself going to increasingly dramatic lengths to see that smile, and the way it made the angel seem to shine from within with a heavenly light that the serpent thought he would never have been blessed to see again. 

“Well, what do you propose instead?” Aziraphale asked while meticulously buffing his fingernails on the cloth of his wilting robe. He’d already patched and repaired all of the snags and tears that had damaged it, but even a miracle hadn’t managed to get the stains out of the hem. 

The creature set its young down and began to dig around the roots of one of the bushes which Crawly had spent an afternoon trimming and shaping. He’d called it a hedge (“Because it hedges your cave, you see?” “Yes, Crawly. I see. Now wipe your feet before you come in. You’re covered in mud again.”) and had been terribly proud of himself. 

“Hedgehog!” he blurted out, causing Aziraphale to snap his wings back in surprise. 

The angel stared. 

“Because it’s… In the hedge… Hogging it.”

“Just…” Aziraphale pinched the bridge of his nose, an action he seemed to be doing more and more frequently. “All right, I’ll let you have that one. But I get to rename the Stab Horse.” 

“You can have it. It’s just got the one horn. Nothing special. Now the Branch Horse,” Crawly sighed happily, nodding to the enormous brown beast with the soft round nose and veritable topiary sprouted from its skull that was grazing on pond scum with deceptive placidity. “That’s an animal with potential.” He’d already seen the beast get into, and win, a fight with the newly named Bear. “Those uni-horns, they’ll be everywhere, mark my words.” 

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes, wondering just when he had begun to grow fond of this demon. 

  
  


Day Ninety-Three

They had settled into a routine by the time the leaves had begun to change their colours. When a whole day and night had passed without Crawly slithering his way into Aziraphale’s cave, he was alarmed to find that he was worried about his enemy. Had he decided he no longer wanted the angel’s company? Had his superiors called him down again? Had he been injured in another run-in with the swan cob? The monstrous bird saw Crawly as a threat in either of his forms. An enormous snake was a threat to the safety of his cygnets while strong, sleek black wings made him fear his mate’s eyes would wander.

Hiking up the hem of his robes, Aziraphale trotted out of his cave. Crawly wasn’t on his rock or swimming in the pond. The swan family were paddling about calmly, the cygnets almost fully grown and beginning to lose their adolescent colours and gawkiness. The cob didn’t have the air of having just pummeled a demon about him. 

“Crawly?” he finally called out when he couldn’t find him in any of the usual spots he expected him to be. Aziraphale was tramping through the forest that made up much of the Garden, trying to hide his distress. He didn’t often go this deep into the forest on his own. The trees were tall enough that their outstretched branches created a false twilight on the ground by blocking out all but scant rays of the sun. Wind made those branches creak and clatter together, masking the noise of approaching animals. He felt helpless, knowing he wouldn’t be able to take to flight if a predator decided to pounce on him. His wings were too large, the tree trunks too close together for him to get lift. Even now, one of the huge cats could be hiding up in the leaves ready to fall on his back to make a meal of him. 

They would never send him back here in a new body if he was so foolish as to get eaten. 

After discovering that running was certainly not one of his favourite activities, Aziraphale leaned against a tree, panting for breath after his mad dash away from invisible predators. He pressed a hand to the stitch in his side before calling out again for his friend. Enemy. Colleague? 

“She’s dying,” came a soft, mournful voice from above. 

Aziraphale looked up to find Crawly in the branches of the tree he had chosen to rest against. He had his cheek against the rough bark of the grand oak and seemed to be listening with his eyes closed. 

“Who is?” Aziraphale wheezed, turning in a circle to look for an injured creature. 

“She is. The tree.” Crawly caressed the trunk. “They all are. But she isn't making sense. She says that she  _ wants  _ to.” 

Ignoring his dignity which told him that he was not designed for these sort of antics, Aziraphale reached up to grip the lowest limb and grunted and heaved to haul himself up alongside Crawly. He took a moment to primly tuck his robes about himself before resting his hand next to Crawly’s on the trunk. He heard nothing, but felt the faintest trace of satisfaction and exhaustion. 

“She says her acorns have been planted, her leaves are ready to drop. And then she will die. And she is happy about that. They’ve all been telling me it all day. That they are ready.” Blinking rapidly, Crawly cleared his throat. “Even the hedges and shrubs. The flowers and grasses. All of them, Aziraphale.” 

“Surely… Surely there is a reason for it.” Aziraphale attempted to sound reassuring, but it didn’t entirely reach his voice. Maybe God’s experiment was coming to an end already, and the Garden was going to disappear. He would be called back to his troops and be expected to take up sword and shield against his fellow angels once more. 

“You were worried about me.” Crawly lifted his head and brushed his hair back. It was hanging loose about his face, with twigs and leaves tangled into it. 

Clucking his tongue, Aziraphale reached over to comb out the mess, being gentle with the knots until he could braid it into a crown about his friend’s head. “I was simply surprised to find you hadn’t come by to pester me yet today.” he said, fixing the braid in place. 

Crawly patted Aziraphale on the knee. “I’ll be by later. You can make me one of those cups of leaf juice you’ve been blending.” 

“A hot one,” Aziraphale murmured as the breeze picked up into a proper wind. 

With even less grace and agility than he had climbed it with, Aziraphale scrambled out of the tree, wincing when the hem of his robe caught on the branch and ripped up to his knee. He glared down at the damage until it guiltily repaired itself. A smudge of dirt dried and blew away as an added step of appeasement. Aziraphale had threatened to burn the robe a time or two and it worried he might be tempted to go through with it this time. 

Satisfied with his appearance, he shook out his wings. When he looked back up to Crawly, the sun broke through the branches, striking him in just such a way that the braid around his head seemed to be gilded, and shone like his lost halo. 

Day One Hundred Ninety-Eight

Aziraphale hated the cold. 

He didn’t hate many things. The itching red bumps that appeared after an insect took a bite out of him; the sight of his own blood; the pain in his head after eating fermented fruit; when Crawly slurped his drinks; His hatred for cold was stronger than all of those. 

The first snowfall had been beautiful. He had stood out in it, his face turned heavenward to let the tiny crystals of ice land on his cheeks and cling to his lashes. He had caught them on his tongue, marvelling at them in the moments before they melted into water. The snow hadn’t lasted on the ground for more than a handful of minutes. 

The second, the snow stayed on the frozen ground, building up to ankle depth. Aziraphale began to shiver. 

By the fifth, he had retreated to the back of his cave as drifts of snow piled around the entrance, biting wind screaming outside. 

Crawly had retreated with him, dragging fallen branches and leaves behind him to build a fire. If his plants had to have died, at least he could put their remains to good use. 

“C’mere, Angel,” Crawly beckoned. The feathers of his wings were standing on end to hold warm air near his skin. He stretched them out, wrapping one around Aziraphale to pull him against his side. 

Aziraphale was frozen for a moment, then thawed. Melted, resting his cheek on Crawly’s shoulder and his hand on his chest. 

He hated the cold. 

But he supposed it could be worse. 

  
  


Day Two Hundred Thirty-Seven

They were stretched out next to the fire, wings and arms wrapped together for warmth, when Crawly had sat upright with a shout. 

“A spark?” Aziraphale asked, looking him over for a burn. 

“No!” He was laughing. His eyes were wide and bright, the pupils shot almost to circles as he gripped Aziraphale by the shoulders. “Can’t you hear them?” He didn’t wait for an answer and scrambled and flapped to the entrance of the cave to burst out into the sun. 

It was still cold, but the snow had begun to retreat. Melt water was streaming from icicles, and the pond had movement for the first time in months. 

And the trees were dotted with life. Tiny buds tipped each twig, leaves ready to unfurl and open to the light. 

The earth was a riot of growth. Roots were waking up, stretching out into the soil and sending shoots to the surface. Seeds and bulbs began to swell and split with infant trees and flowers taking hold. 

Crawly dashed to the forest’s edge and collided with a great maple. Her trunk was practically throbbing with the movement of sap, rupturing through the bark in places to flow out sweet and sticky. She was  _ delighted _ . She had made it through the winter and woken to find herself so full to overflowing with sap that she would be able to put out even more leaves and seeds that year than she had before. 

All of this she explained to Crawly. She had died with the coming frost, to protect herself. To let herself rest, so she could be stronger in the spring when she awoke. That death, that  _ sleep _ , had left her ready to grow. 

That night, when the first stars came out, Crawly pillowed his head on Aziraphale’s chest and closed his eyes. For the first time, he allowed himself to drift off. To sleep.

And to dream. 

Not of heaven, but of a real paradise. 

  
  
  


London, 1835

“Stop pestering the swans, my dear.” Aziraphale chided, catching Crowley by the back of the frock coat and hauling him back from the water’s edge where he was hissing with all the ferocity of a just-hatched grass snake. 

It was a warm late summer day and the swans had cygnets to protect and Crowley had a grudge. One bird rose out of the water trumpetting a challenge and bringing his wings together with a mighty clap until angel and demon retreated further from the shore. They both knew from experience the sort of damage those wings could inflict, and knew that the Corporeal Distribution Facilitators were far from understanding of excuses like ‘A scary large bird broke my spine.’ Especially after issuing seventeen new bodies in a single fortnight where the reason on the requisition forms all stated ‘The horse threw me again.’ 

Tutting with long suffering secondhand embarrassment, Aziraphale had a happy thought. He concentrated for a moment and the slightly stale, shop-bought loaf in his hand turned into a buttery soft and baffled Sally Lunn. 

“Mmn?” he asked, offering a piece to Crowley, knowing that he would decline. 

“I could have beaten him,” Crowley sulked, waving away the tidbit. 

“Of course you could, my dear.” 

“My wings are much larger.” 

“And far more robust.” Aziraphale sucked crumbs from his fingertips and hummed contentedly. 

They strolled around the lake, stopping for a moment so Crowley could throw a wayward ball back to a group of children and remind them to be careful so close to the water’s edge before baring his teeth at the implication that it mattered to him one way or another if they fell in. From one end of the Serpentine to the other they pretended they were just another pair of companions enjoying the park instead of both knowing that they were there on Business. 

It was Aziraphale who finally broke the spell. “My people want to send me on some scientific expedition.” He pulled a face and gave an exaggerated shudder of distaste. 

“Mine, too.” Crowley’s shudder was less intense, but no less unhappy. Then he pulled up short. 

Aziraphale, who had his hand tucked into Crowley’s elbow in deference to the social custom for men of a certain class enjoying the company of their friends and no other reason thank you very much, was forced to a halt as well. 

“I was going to ask you to take over my tasks for a month or so.” 

“As was I. It’s why I called you here to meet. I am meant to be in attendance at the establishment of a monastery in Leicestershire.” Aziraphale took a small notebook from his waistcoat pocket to consult his upcoming duties. “Oh, how sweet. They were going to name a type of ale after me.”

Crowley pulled a grubby scrap of smudged paper from the lining of his hat so they could compare tasks as they continued to walk around the lake. “I was supposed to appear in a flash of light and puff of smoke at a - get this, the Catholics are returning, how quaint- a new chapel in Herefordshire. I was hoping you could manage that one for me. You’re always up for a chapel, they give out wine and those little biscuits.” 

“Wafers, dear,” Aziraphale corrected absently as he ticked off a few items. “I wanted you to take a trip to Paris to get me a couple copies of  _ Séraphîta  _ by Balzac.” He held up a hand to quell any protest. “I would have covered the cost, of course. You just know how I try to avoid France if given the choice. Once a country tries to behead me, it gets struck off my list of places of interest.” 

“To be entirely fair to them,” Crowley began, always happy to play the Devil’s Advocate. “They wouldn’t have arrested you if you hadn’t been dressed like a fop-” 

“ _ Dandy _ ,” he cut in, sounding scandalised at the thought that someone, especially someone who knew him so well for so long could mistake him for a fop when he was most clearly a dandy.

“Very well, a dandy. All the more reason for them to have tried to drag you up onto the block.” 

Aziraphale sighed dramatically and crossed out another item on his list. He had hoped he could get Crowley to fetch some almond pralines while he was in Paris, but he supposed that getting them delivered by post wouldn’t sully the flavour. “Fine, any country that doesn’t have the good taste to allow someone to dress for lunch is struck off. Do you have  _ any  _ idea how difficult it is to find heeled shoes that comfortable? And you just-” he snapped his fingers. “Poof, gave them to my executioner! I had to wear those ridiculous boots all the way back to London. And my stockings! They were silk.” 

Crowley reached over and clapped Aziraphale on the chest to stop them both. “Wait why do you need to go on this expedition, too?” 

“Cost me four blessed shillings,” Aziraphale muttered, tucking his notebook back in his pocket. “And I did the mending myself. Silk thread isn’t cheap. Neither are those tiny little hooks and needles.” 

“Angel!”

“What? Oh,” he flapped his hand. “Some lad has been visiting areas of the southern parts of the world, and they’re beginning to give him Ideas that my side believe could cause a bit of an upheaval. I’m meant to go along and try to help him with his crisis of conscience.” He didn’t clarify whether or not he was meant to be dissuading him from pursuing his findings. 

Crowley tugged on his lip. “My side wants me to go and encourage him. They think that the science community will start to feel all smug and superior, while the anti-science community will be stuck clutching their pearls and calling for the stake. Having the two at each other for the next decade or so will bring a lot of people marching in our direction.” 

“Decade? Surely the ideas he’s forming will be discussed rationally, and decided on within a couple of weeks. I can’t imagine that people would really be fighting over his findings for that long.” 

Not for the first time, Crowley tilted his head to the side as he surveyed the angel, finding his naivety utterly adorable. 

“Of course not, Angel.” 

  
  


Galapagos Archipelago, 1835

“How are you holding up, AJ?” The big mate gave him a wallop on the shoulder that sent him careening against the rail of the Beagle. He managed to keep from plunging into the sea, only for a wave to lift the ship then drop it down again like a bath toy.

“Hrrnkgahh,” Crowley replied, clinging to the rail and emptying out the last remains of his stomach over the side. When that didn’t seem to be enough, he dry heaved for a few minutes while stars burst behind his eyes. 

“Yeah, we get a lot of that with first timers. Strange that y’haven’t picked up your sea legs yet. We’ve been out from England f’r a goodly long time now.” 

“Hraahhh,” Crowley agreed, bent nearly double over the rail. “Aahhn.” 

“Aye, but you’ll get on, like’n your friend over yon.” The mate nodded to Aziraphale who was timing his steps to the roll of the ship, stepping around piles of rope and avoiding the splash of waves without glancing up from his book as he crossed the deck. “If ever’n there were a man born for the sea, it’s him.” 

Aziraphale approached, his hat at a jaunty angle to keep the sun from his eyes, all the better to concentrate on his book. “The captain tells me we will be casting out the landing boats in an hour.” He made a sympathetic sound in the back of his throat at the sight of Crowley’s, even more pale than usual, face and tugged a handkerchief out of the cuff of his sleeve. “You look miserable,” he crooned, dabbing at Crowley’s cheeks and forehead. 

While the expedition team was loading supplies back onto the Beagle after mapping one of the islands in the chain they were visiting, two men had been there to help haul things aboard the ship. They were clean, and fresh, and when they were out of sight, no one spared a thought for them. When they were in the company of the sailors, they seemed to recall that they had been with them since the very beginning. None of the sailors would ever be able to give a description of either of the pair, and they didn’t seem particularly bothered by this fact. Even as the mate left them alone at the rail, the thought of them flitted from his head. 

Now they were about to make landfall at the second island, and Aziraphale was looking forward to having a nice comfortable place to sit on the beach with his book, while Crowley was wishing for something under his feet that didn’t feel like it was breathing or about to disappear. 

The charge they had come to observe was a wispy fair haired young man with baby’s cheeks, a heavy brow, and a tiny pout of a mouth. While the cartographers had worked on creating their maps and pestering the locals, he had fawned over flowers and rock samples and sketched pictures of birds. His specimen collection grew with each stop they made. Aziraphale had taken an instant liking to him, while Crowley had terrified one of his potted plants into putting out luscious blooms even in the dim recesses of the ship. 

The man approached them now, pulling a satchel over his head and waving his sketchbook. “Mr Fell!” 

Aziraphale gave Crowley’s cheek one last pat before tucking the handkerchief back into his cuff. “Mr Darwin, you look ready to begin a trek.” 

“They’re going to leave me on James, to explore!” he exclaimed, pumping Aziraphale’s hand enthusiastically. “While they go fuss about on one of the smaller islands, the physician and I will have an entire week, possibly more, to collect specimens. You will be joining us, yes?” The young man believed that Mr Ezra Fell and his seasick companion were fellow naturalists there to build their collections and learn about different ecosystems. Each time he began to write about them in his journals over the previous several days, he lost all interest. He wasn’t bothered to learn that he hadn’t mentioned them once since their voyage had begun. 

“Yes,” croaked Crowley, desperate to have solid ground under his feet. 

“Hopefully the volcano will clear her throat, and we’ll feel the earth shake,” Charles said dreamily, not noticing how the last traces of colour had drained from Crowley’s face. 

“He’s a madman,” Crowley insisted as Charles went off to check that the landing boats had all of his supplies safely stowed. “We can go home now. No one will listen to him.” 

Landing was far from easy. As the Beagle stayed anchored in safety, they took the smaller boats to shore. The sea was alive with doggy faced aquatic creatures that fearlessly investigated the boats, bobbing with the waves and barking to one another. The ship’s physician had to catch Charles by the shoulder to keep him from pitching into the water trying to get a closer look. By the time they hit the rocky shore, Crowley was ready to write up another requisition form. There was no way his body could handle this sort of treatment. He rolled out of the boat and onto the pebbles, clutching at them as waves lapped at his feet, ready to drag him back into the surf. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale breathed out, reaching down for his friend. “Look,” 

“Unless it’s a cantina, I don’t wanna see it,” Crowley whined, rubbing his cheeks on the beach. 

Aziraphale gave him a shake and pulled him to his feet. “ _ Look _ ,” 

Taking the smoked lenses from his eyes, Crowley took in the sight. 

To their left the ground rose, the black lava rock giving way to vibrant greens that stretched to the base of a small mountain. Overhead, birds flew, sweeping and rolling, riding the air currents and thermal updraughts in a series of aerial acrobatics. Crowley turned, watching them rise until they were mere dots against the clouds before they brought in their wings to plummet into the waves. At each impact with the water, a spray shot into the air. For a moment they were gone, only to erupt back into the air with their catches held in beaks. The ones who had failed to catch a meal repeated the manoeuvrer, plunging into water only a few feet deep. 

From out of the surf the playful, curious animals that had greeted their boats flopped ashore. They barked and grunted and whistled, shuffling their chubby bodies forward until they found a warm, sunny spot to rest. They were close enough to see the short fur that covered their bodies and the long whiskers that sprouted from their cheeks. Unbothered by the visitors, the females yawned and piled together while their male anxiously patrolled his stretch of beach. 

Each rock held a handful of reptiles, craggy and spiked, they seemed to be carved of the very stone they rested upon. It was only when one moved that they seemed to be flesh and blood. 

Even with so much life at the water’s edge, it was deeper into the island that the plant life had taken hold. The base of the mountain almost glowed like an emerald caught in the sun. 

With his hand to his mouth, Crowley sank limp and weak to his knees. “I didn’t-” he began, the words catching in his throat. He looked helplessly up to Aziraphale who then knelt at his side. “I didn’t think I’d ever see anything like it again.” He sat back on his heels. He could  _ feel  _ the island’s life. Everywhere there was something growing, even off the shore. Mosses and flowers and algae and creeping vines that took hold into the cracks and crevasses left behind by the lava flows, they all sang out their greetings to him. 

Welcoming him. 

  
  


For six days, it was like they had returned to the Garden. 

They broke away from Charles to allow him to conduct his own explorations. No controversy he might cause was more important than the joy that Crowley had practically bursting from his pores in Aziraphale’s eyes. 

At night, under the light of the moon, they swam in blue green coves, diving deep to find lost gold coins and gems. They scaled rocks eroded by the crash of waves, stretching out under the stars, whispering to one another so as not to break the spell of the place. Crowley traced patterns in the sky, telling stories of the clusters he had designed while Aziraphale followed his fingers with his own. 

By day, they collected plants to bring back to London. Each one carefully removed from the mineral rich soil and informed of the new life they would have in the city. 

Aziraphale had tripped over what he had thought to be a rock, only for a head to appear and glare at him. The large, slow creature swayed from side to side until it stood almost knee height. Its neck stretched out even higher and it rocked back then forward to collide with the angel’s shin, making him almost swear and topple back. 

“What is it?” Crowley called from where he was putting his flowers in pots on the other side of a pile of boulders. 

“It’s rude, is what it is!” 

The animal bumped him again, turning to shove at him with the side of its shell until he moved out of the way. Satisfied that the intruder had been put in his place, it trundled a few paces to crop at the grasses around its wallow. 

“It’s a massive turtle,” Crowley chuckled with delight when he came over to investigate. Squatting down, he put himself eye to eye with the animal. 

The tortoise surveyed him thoughtfully through dark beady eyes then slowly stretched out to eat the flower that had been tucked behind Crowley’s ear. It was one of the last of the season and made a tasty treat. This big snake didn’t need flowers anyway, the tortoise thought as she chewed the blossom and enjoyed the warmth that came up off the serpent’s body. Even if he does have a strange camouflage. 

The human that she had seen the day before had admired her and caressed her shell. If she could find him again, perhaps she could even get a nice scratch. With the snack finished, the tortoise paused to give Aziraphale another hard shove before wandering away. 

“The cheek!” 

With their time on the island drawing to a close, Crowley came to Aziraphale on their last morning. Most of the animals were still drowsy and slow, waiting for the sun to revive them. Iguanas stretched out on their rocks, and birds twittered and fussed in their nests. Sea lions rolled into the sea to ride the waves and catch breakfast. 

“What are you doing?” 

Crowley was unbuttoning his coat and letting it fall to the ground. His glasses were nowhere to be seen. He pulled his shirt over his head, dropping it as well. Aziraphale took a step back, his eyes going wide and looking for a place to bolt. 

He had seen Crowley bare countless times since those days in the Garden. They had swum together, visited saunas and Roman baths, gotten massages, and gone to tailors together. No matter how many times he had seen it, Crowley’s body gave him pause. 

It was lean, but not hard. Aziraphale knew that the skin over his hips and down his back had the faintest hint of scale patterns. The thin patch of red hair on the centre of his chest was silken and tickled when his cheek rested against it. His ribs showed and just above the waistband of his breeches his hips were sharp points. 

“Crowley…” 

The demon’s eyes fluttered closed and he let out the softest of moans when the air behind him crackled. Black wings snapped free, as if tearing out of bindings that held them restrained. They stretched to their fullest, feathers spreading and ruffling. 

“I want to see all of it,” he explained, his eyes still closed. “The whole island, Angel. I want to see it from above.” 

“We can’t. The humans. They-” 

“They’re too busy gathering snails and fish to look up. They won’t see us. And if they do, they’ll mistake us for birds.” Crowley peeked a glance over at Aziraphale then smirked. “They’ll think we’re those big albatrosses. A couple of seabirds.” 

Aziraphale bit his lip and looked out along the beach. Just as Crowley had said, the other men were busy with poking around the rock pools. “They won’t see us,” he repeated, his fingers already reaching for his cravat. 

“Exactly. We won’t get caught.” Crowley reached out to help, fondling open the buttons of Aziraphale’s waistcoat and pushing it off along with his coat. 

Soft and plump, Aziraphale’s body was a source of heat and comfort. Crowley felt he could wind himself around it and never let go. 

His wings were just as grand, if a bit unkempt. Crowley buried his fingers deep into the fluffiest feathers at the base and gave them a scratch until Aziraphale groaned aloud. Those spots were impossible to reach when he was preening himself, and were always neglected. 

Crowley launched himself into the air with a sound like canvas sail unfurling into a headwind. His laughter came from overhead as he called down. “I want to see _all_ of it, Aziraphale. Come with me!” 

Aziraphale was more dignified in his take off, crouching slightly before flapping his wings to rise up to meet his friend. 

From above the island was a green jewel in the sea. It appeared that a giant hand had pressed it from the middle toward the coast causing one end to swell into the mountain, almost dragging it along the seabed toward its sister islands. The landscape was a gradient of greens and browns and a black shore of lava flow. One small body of water was a riot of pink, flamingos flocking together for their first meal of the day. Hawks circled, and shoals of fish off the shore swam with the same singular movements as the birds which hunted them overhead. 

Crowley reached out until his fingertips brushed against Aziraphale’s. He shot him a mad grin then led him on a chase through the clouds. They rode the same thermals as the birds, taking them impossibly high, high enough that the humans truly would mistake them for those hawks or a mated pair of albatross. 

It was the longest Aziraphale had ever flown since coming to earth. His wings were exhausted, his hair clinging to his face, he was cold, and he felt ready to drop out of the sky. And he wasn’t going to land until Crowley had gotten his fill. 

The sun had reached its peak by the time they finally landed, laughing and panting and wind chafed to lie on the grass next to their clothes, their wings spread out beneath them. Soon they would need to dress and return to the expedition party. For now though, they could pretend they were alone on this island paradise with nothing but the plants and the animals for company until the Beagle crested the horizon. 

  
  


Mayfair, 1859

“This one nipped me,” Crowley murmured, tapping a drawing of a finch with a large beak and a fierce expression then taking a deep swallow of a glass of comet vintage. 

“Well, you did prod it,” Aziraphale pointed out, wriggling in his seat next to the demon before turning the page. 

The volume was fascinating, and informative, and had taken long enough to be published that Aziraphale only felt the slightest tinge of guilt that he hadn’t put much work into doing anything about it. To ease that guilt he had only purchased six copies to put in the window of his shop with a neatly printed little card of Sure To Be An Instant Classic tacked up beside them. 

“Do you want to return?” Aziraphale asked when Crowley stood and paced over to his plants. 

Stroking a finger over the petal of a flower, Crowley shook his head. “No,” he replied, smiling when the flower stood a bit taller and smelled a bit sweeter under the attention. He glanced back at Aziraphale. He was dressed for the opera, and they would get dinner first and drinks after. They would return to the bookshop to talk or to read or to just sit quietly in each other’s company. They would argue over wines and music and politics while sharing a seat and ignoring the sound of the bell as customers tried to get into the shop. They would pretend it was just them in the little paradise they had built together away from their superiors. 

“No, I’m good here.” 

**Author's Note:**

> And lo, the writer was heard to say 'Hmm, I wonder how incredibly dorky I can make Crowley?' and they were pleased.


End file.
